{"id":27644,"date":"2021-11-19T09:00:40","date_gmt":"2021-11-19T09:00:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/news.cancerresearchuk.org\/?p=23811"},"modified":"2024-11-03T15:14:09","modified_gmt":"2024-11-03T15:14:09","slug":"bjorn-saven-by-supporting-early-career-researchers-to-do-their-jobs-really-well-we-can-help-move-the-world-forward","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/bjorn-saven-by-supporting-early-career-researchers-to-do-their-jobs-really-well-we-can-help-move-the-world-forward\/","title":{"rendered":"Bjorn Saven: \u201cBy supporting early career researchers to do their jobs really well, we can help move the world forward\u201d"},"content":{"rendered":"
<\/p>\n

Bjorn Saven<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

We speak with the industrialist, investor and Cancer Research UK supporter about his substantial donation to support our early career researchers\u2026 and why he changed his mind about cancer research<\/em><\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cThe first step towards making an impact is always to make sure you run a good shop and carry out efficient, high-quality work.\u201d<\/p>\n

So says industrialist, investor, philanthropist \u2013 and now a major Cancer Research UK supporter \u2013 Bjorn Saven. \u201cOnly once that focus and excellence has been achieved in your area of expertise are you in a position to communicate what you have learned to the world.\u201d Luckily, Bjorn\u2019s recent substantial donation suggests he believes we are indeed running a good shop.<\/p>\n

Shaking the tree<\/h2>\n

The generous donation will support our Cancer Research UK Future Leaders Programme, which gives early career researchers the tools and resources they need to build exceptional careers and make a significant contribution to the fight against cancer.<\/p>\n

With part of the gift, Bjorn will support two PhD students and a postdoctoral fellow studying cancer at our prestigious institutes, including our flagship, the Francis Crick Institute<\/a>. There, they\u2019ll benefit from daily access to state-of-the-art facilities and mentoring from world-leading experts. This combination allows our junior researchers to contribute vital insights early on in their careers \u2013 insights that are broadening our understanding of topics such as how cancer evolves inside the body and what makes us susceptible to disease in the first place.<\/p>\n

The second half of Bjorn\u2019s gift has already helped to launch the annual Cancer Grand Challenges Future Leaders Conference, which was held for the first time last month. The conference offers early career researchers from teams funded by Cancer Grand Challenges<\/a> \u2013 a global research funding platform co-founded by us and the US National Cancer Institute \u2013 the opportunity to come together and share ideas from their multidisciplinary projects, all of which are tackling one of cancer\u2019s toughest challenges.<\/p>\n

\u201cOf course, once everyone has started to dig into their own corners of research, what\u2019s often lacking is that helicopter view,\u201d says Bjorn. \u201cWhen excellence has been achieved within their respective fields, researchers need to be able to come together to share their knowledge and findings, to try new approaches and develop.\u201d To do that, he says, \u201cYou need the integrative mechanism of conferences and get-togethers like the Cancer Grand Challenges Future Leaders Conference, which I\u2019m pleased to support.\u201d<\/p>\n

Naturally, this year\u2019s conference was held remotely. But in time, we hope it will evolve into a vibrant in-person event that helps foster an active cross-team, multidisciplinary and multi-national community, who learn from and challenge one another to think differently about problems that are holding back progress in cancer research. We hope it will encourage these talented young minds to pursue new avenues of exploration and gather new knowledge \u2013 like piecing together an incredibly complicated jigsaw puzzle \u2013 and that this will continue throughout the year, not just at the conferences.<\/p>\n

\n

\u201cIt feels good to help launch an initiative that will convene some of the world\u2019s brightest early career researchers, who can really help move the world forward\u201d \u2013 Bjorn Saven<\/cite><\/span><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The conference is powered by a steering committee of PhD students and postdoctoral fellows who work hard to make it memorable and relevant for their peers. One such volunteer is Dr Elee Shimshoni, a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard\u2019s Wyss Institute whose team was granted Cancer Grand Challenges funding in 2019. \u201cFor those of us with their boots on the ground \u2013 the trainees, the graduate students and postdocs who carry out experiments and analyse data \u2013 communication between one another has the highest potential to lead to fruitful collaborations,\u201d she explains. Calling the conference \u201cinvaluable\u201d, Elee told us her key takeaway was: \u201cWe can all be agents of change in our own realm.\u201d<\/p>\n

For Bjorn, this is exactly what he\u2019d hoped for from the inaugural event. \u201cIt feels good to help launch an initiative that will convene some of the world\u2019s brightest early career researchers, who can really help move the world forward.\u201d He believes that by developing the infrastructure for people working in science, medicine and technology to thrive, we can bring about meaningful change. Bjorn is already looking ahead to next year\u2019s event: \u201cIt will be interesting to see how these early career researchers continue to \u2018shake the tree\u2019.\u201d<\/p>\n

Changing perspective<\/h2>\n

With his donation, Bjorn has shown a generous commitment to helping early career researchers progress our understanding of cancer. And he has recently taken on a volunteer advisory role on one of our leadership committees. With his wealth of business expertise, we\u2019re delighted to welcome Bjorn\u2019s ideas around how we can be even more effective in the way we fund the world\u2019s best research.<\/p>\n

But he admits he didn\u2019t always see the value in supporting cancer research. \u201cMany years back, I think people misunderstood the usefulness of it,\u201d he says. \u201cIt seemed that, despite much research, people were still dying of cancer.\u201d Seeing the vast progress that\u2019s been made over the past few decades, Bjorn eventually came to change his mind. \u201cI started hearing about breakthroughs that allowed people to live for many years after treatment,\u201d he recalls, noting the significant progress seen in breast cancer and prostate cancer outcomes as particularly awe-inspiring. \u201cAll of a sudden, I realised that it wasn\u2019t about death. It was also about the extra years of life cancer research can provide.\u201d<\/p>\n

Early on in life, Bjorn himself received a cancer diagnosis. \u201cI was told I had a malignant melanoma, and that it was fairly serious,\u201d he says. Bjorn promptly received surgery, which was thankfully a success \u2013 he needed no further treatment. But it left an indelible impression, and made him think again about the impact and promise of cancer research. \u201cIt was the starting point for my interest in supporting Cancer Research UK,\u201d he says.<\/p>\n

Filling the gaps<\/h2>\n

Bjorn\u2019s philanthropy has grown in recent years, with other interests including the arts also benefiting from his generosity. But health and medical charities feature prominently. As well as his work with Cancer Research UK, he is a trustee at the fantastic pregnancy and baby loss charity, Tommy\u2019s. With so many causes to choose from within health alone, how does he decide which projects to support?<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat\u2019s important is finding programmes where personal gifts can make a difference. Philanthropy gives us the opportunity to, in a small or bigger way, help fill gaps left by the public sector or governments,\u201d he says. \u201cInitiatives like the Cancer Research UK Future Leaders Programme wouldn\u2019t necessarily be funded by the Government, but by supporting early career researchers to do their jobs really well, I believe we can help move the world forward and, in the long-term, make a big difference.\u201d<\/p>\n

In the end, says Bjorn, it\u2019s fairly simple. \u201cI pick the areas that I think are most promising, support them and hope that it will help.\u201d<\/p>\n

More on this topic<\/h3>\n<\/p>\n

Source<\/a><\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Bjorn Saven We speak with the industrialist, investor and Cancer Research UK supporter about his substantial donation to support our early career researchers\u2026 and why he changed his mind about cancer research \u201cThe first step towards making an impact is always to make sure you run a good shop and carry out efficient, high-quality work.\u201d […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5137],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-27644","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27644","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27644"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27644\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":45092,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27644\/revisions\/45092"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27644"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27644"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ogkologos.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27644"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}